3rd Symposium 2007

FRIDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER

13:00-14:00
REGISTRATION

14:00-14:30
WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

• Donata von Perfall, Director, Discovery Campus
• Constantin Ostaficiuc, President of the Timis County Council
• Gheorghe Ciuhandu, Mayor of Timisoara
• Christoph Jörg, Head of Thematic Sessions, Discovery Campus

14:30-16:00
FINDING GOOD CONTENT FOR A WORLDWIDE MARKET

• Richard Bradley, Lion TV, London, UK

We explore with Richard Bradley how to survive in the wonderful but sometimes confusing world of documentary and factual production. Richard Bradley is Managing Director and Vice President of Content of Lion Television Ltd., one of the bigger companies in the UK with offices around the world. We discuss what it takes to make content compelling enough to inspire international commissioning editors and garner top ratings. He will share his longtime experience with us, show samples of his work and participate in a Q&A. Richard Bradley has successfully developed a growing group of specialist on-screen talent, and has been at the cutting edge of trends in TV specialist factual production. They have been pioneers in cost effective and high end drama recreation, have originated many innovative uses of CGI and worked extensively in high definition. Richard has extensive experience of managing large scale coproductions involving international filming.

16:00-16:30
COFFEE BREAK

16:30-18:00
GOING EAST

• László Demeter, Duna TV, Budapest, Hungary
• Jerzy Dziegielewski, HBO Central Europe, Warsaw, Poland
• Florin Iepan, Sub-Cult-Ura, Timisoara, Romania *
• Ivana Miloševiè, Institute of Documentary Film, Czech Republic
• Claudia Nedelcu, TVR, Bucharest, Romania

“Going East” will offer the chance to learn about the profiles of East European broadcasters, and provide producers from those countries with the possibility to ask unsolved and open questions. We will introduce new steps of building an internationally interesting programme for East Europeans, and we will look at recently developed in-house productions vs. working with independent productions in the public TV sector.

18:00-19:00
HAVING A GOOD IDEA IS NOT ENOUGH: UNDERSTANDING INTERNATIONAL DOC TRENDS

• Tom Koch, WGBH International, Boston, USA
• Louise Rosen, Louise Rosen Ltd., Brunswick, USA
• Neil Sieling, Acquisitions, New Media & Special Projects, Link Media, New York, USA

This panel focuses on the international marketplace for documentaries from the perspective of distribution. Having a good idea is great. But it is even better to know what broadcasters and distributors are really looking for. What are the types of docs that sell today? How do you choose a distributor? What are the benefits of working with a distributor, or should you consider doing it alone? Tom Koch and Louise Rosen will show clips and we explore together documentary trends from around the world. With the advent of constantly evolving online and interactive technologies, filmmakers and producers now have access to new platforms of distribution. Neil Sieling will explore ways of making films immediately available to interested audiences worldwide, and making a profit when doing so.

19:00-20:00
COCKTAIL BREAK

20:00-21:00
SCREENING: DIANA – THE WITNESSES IN THE TUNNEL
(Produced by ITN Factual for Channel 4, 2007, 52 min)

Diana, Princess of Wales was perhaps the most photographed person in the world. Her death in a car crash in August 1997 stunned a world that had lived her life with her. The blame was put squarely on the photographers who surrounded her in death as well as in life. For ten years conspiracy theories, claims and counter-claims have obscured what actually happened that night. Did the photographers chase Diana to her death in the Pont d'Alma tunnel? Were they too busy taking pictures to call the emergency services and did their presence hinder those services? They had witnessed and recorded one of the most terrible and iconic moments of the 20th century. But for ten years that night has plagued their lives. This is the story of the photographers arrested that night. The film uses some of the photographs that were taken by passers-by as well as professionals and helps to establish what went on in the tunnel that night. Some have not been seen on television before. They are the most precise record of what happened in the tunnel during the hour after the crash. One image in the film has been appropriately obscured to avoid any unwarranted intrusion into their privacy or that of their families. For one night the press photographs became the most expensive ever, but when Diana died they became worthless. Those who possessed them were hounded and for some their careers destroyed. The photographers have never felt able to tell their side of the story... until now.

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SATURDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER

9:30-11:00
MAKE IT TROUBLE!

• Hamish Mykura, Channel 4, London, UK

CASE STUDY: DIANA – THE WITNESSES IN THE TUNNEL AND OTHER COMMISSIONS FROM CHANNEL4’S SPECIALIST FACTUAL DEPARTMENT

The motto for Channel 4 is "inspire change, do it first and make it trouble". Hamish Mykura is Channel 4's Head of Specialist Factual and responsible for much of Britain's most controversial broadcaster's output. He commissioned recently Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel which made a lot of noise in the UK and put Channel 4 in trouble. Mykura has been in the eye of the storm before. He had Richard Dawkins challenge religion under the title "The Root of All Evil," and his commission of "The Great Global Warming Swindle," a documentary that questioned the consensus on climate change, outraged the scientific establishment. Mykura, whose role was enhanced recently when he was put in charge of all Specialist Factual Programming, says it is all part of his job. "People ask you, what's your next controversy then? And I think that if you’re asking that question you don't get about what we are trying to do".

11:00-11:30
COFFEE BREAK

11:30-13:00
HOW TO RUN A WORLDWIDE NETWORK?

• Marian Williams, Discovery Networks Europe, London, UK *
• Lisa Plasco, Discovery Networks Europe, London, UK *
• Marc Rasmus, DMAX, Munich, Germany *

Since September 2006 the Discovery Networks Germany portfolio includes the first free-TV channel DMAX. It is Discovery’s first factual-entertainment channel on a free-to-air basis, targeted at younger men. How does that influence the programme strategy? How do you meet the needs of this core target group? Marc Rasmus will speak about the docu genre in the competitive German free-TV market and present some successful local commissions that have been exclusively developed for DMAX.

13:00-14:30
LUNCH BREAK

14:30-16:30
COMMISSIONS WE LOVE!

• Margje de Koning, IKON, Hilversum, The Netherlands
• Franz Grabner, ORF, Vienna, Austria
• Olaf Grunert, ARTE, Strasbourg, France
• Christoph Jörg, ARTE France, Paris, France
• Michael Burns, Documentary Channel, Toronto, Canada

Each commissioning editor has 20 minutes to share with us a clip of a recent beloved commission and discuss why the project appeals and how it has been developed. We show a more personal side of the commissioning process and prove that beyond the usual funding procedure and channel requirements, there is always great passion for the documentary subject and the filmmaker’s work involved.

16:30-17:00
COFFEE BREAK

17:00-18:30
SCREENING: TO THE LIMIT
(Director: Pepe Danquart, a coproduction of Quintefilm, Hager-Moss Filmproduktion and Lotus Film, 2007, 90 min)

To the Limit is the story of two brothers, Alexander and Thomas Huber, who have been testing themselves in the mountains since early childhood. Today they are known to be among the world's best sport and alpine climbers, impressing the world with their courage and breathtaking exploits. They are brothers who trust their lives to each other in the mountains but who go their separate ways in private life; brothers who experience conflict because of their opposite ways yet who are as inseparable as twins; brothers searching for their limits.

18:30-20:00
BLOOD, SWEAT AND FEAR: DOCUMENTARIES FROM HELL

• Pepe Danquart, Quintefilm, Freiburg, Germany

Pepe Danquart has a tip for anyone who wants to make a film about sport. Before you start, know as little as possible. Pepe Danquart just finished a very successful trilogy of feature length documentaries on sport. We will show clips of the three films and analyze them together with the director.

Back in 2000 when Danquart embarked on "Heimspiel", he wasn't much of an ice hockey fan: "Actually, I'd never been in an ice-hockey stadium before I did that," he says. "Actually, I'm not a sports fan at all". For Homegame, portrait of the Berlin ice hockey club "Eisbären Berlin" and its fans, he was awarded the National German Film Award for Best Director. Then in 2003 Pepe Danquart started filming the toughest bicycle race of all, the Tour de France. “Hell On Wheels” is an account of the 2003 Tour de France - the 100th tour - as seen through the eyes of Germany's Team Telekom. It shows Erik Zabel, Rolf Aldag and teammates chasing greats such as American Lance Armstrong and another German, Jan Ullrich. Pepe Danquart filmed the torture and the pain, the fear and the weaknesses of the cyclists and offers a true insight into the tour. We see the tears of those who are out of the race and the joy of those, who suffered but fulfilled their biggest dream: To reach the finishing-line of this hardest race of all. Now in 2007, he just finished "To the Limit", another feature length doc made for cinema on two risk-takers in the extreme: the breathtaking adventure of Alexander and Thomas, two brothers who set out to break the record in speed climbing at the walls of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley in California.

20:00
DINNER RECEPTION: GARLIC NIGHT PARTY AND OTHER SURPRISES

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SUNDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER

9:30-10:30
MAKING AN IMPACT

• Cara Mertes, Sundance Institute, Beverly Hills, USA

We will show clips from programmes which recently got funding from the Sundance Institute. The original values of independence, creative diversity, and discovery continue to define and guide the work of the Sundance Institute, both with artists from the US and from other regions in the world.

Cara Mertes is the Director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. She oversees all of the initiatives of the Documentary Film Program, including the Sundance Documentary Fund, the annual Documentary Edit and Story Laboratory, the annual Documentary Composers Laboratory, the House of Docs programming at the Filmmaker Lodge at the Sundance Film Festival, and ongoing, year-round support for documentary filmmakers. She is also responsible for curating documentary series with partner institutions, acting as liaison with other Sundance entities on documentary initiatives and representing the Institute in the international documentary community. Dedicated to supporting U.S. and international documentary films that focus on current human rights issues, freedom of expression, social justice, civil liberties, and exploring critical issues of our time, the Program's Documentary Fund was established at Sundance Institute in 2002 with a gift from the Open Society Institute and is supported by a leadership grant from the Ford Foundation. Sundance Institute Documentary Fund grants are announced twice a year and since its inception at the Institute, the Fund has disbursed almost $4.5 million to over 125 projects.

10:30-11:00
COFFEE BREAK

11:00-12:30
MAKE IT GLOBAL!

• Hans Robert Eisenhauer, ZDF/ARTE, Mainz, Germany
• Christoph Jörg, ARTE France, Paris, France
• Nino Kirtadzé, Filmmaker, Paris, France

SCREENING: FOR FAITH, TSAR AND FATHERLAND (52 min) & PANEL DISCUSSION ON THE PROJECT WHY DEMOCRACY?

"For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland" is a 52-minute documentary commissioned by Steps International for the Why Democracy series. We show the film in full length and discuss with director Nino Kirtadzé the difficulties she faced during the shooting. We show also clips from other films of the series and speak about the long and exciting process that it took to bring this special documentary series to TV screens in more than 30 countries.

WHY DEMOCRACY? THE BACKGROUND OF THE SERIES: Democracy is arguably the greatest political buzzword of our time and is invoked by everyone - but what does it mean? Can it be defined, measured, safeguarded? Can it be sold, bought, and transplanted? Can it grow? Can it die? What does it mean to people who can't even talk about it? What does it mean to people who don't believe in it? What does it mean to you?

In October 2007, ten one-hour films focused on contemporary democracy will be broadcast in the world's biggest factual media event. Currently twenty-five broadcasters on all continents are participating, with an estimated audience of a minimum 150 million viewers.

The films are being made by independent award-winning filmmakers from different countries around the world, including China, India, Japan, Liberia, USA, Bolivia, Denmark, and Russia. The Why Democracy? films are intended for educational purposes as well as broadcasters. The films will be accompanied by a website and widespread post-transmission distribution programme on DVD as part of the global project. Why Democracy? is a unique documentary project because it comes with a guaranteed audience and was created in order to stimulate debate across borders and continents.

12:30-14:00
LUNCH BREAK

14:00-15:00
SCHEDULING IN A DIGITAL AGE

• Rudy Buttignol, Knowledge Network, Burnaby, Canada

Understanding how a television network's branding strategy determines what programmes get the "green light,” the great prime-time berth and the heavy promotion. In the highly competitive world of television, networks try and stay ahead of the pack by employing various programming strategies. Some networks build on the status quo, others change their branding to better differentiate their service. Networks also completely rebuild their brands by changing the programming mix in order to attract a different demographic. In this discussion, producers (and aspiring programmers) will learn how television schedules are structured and how this determines the programmes that are commissioned, coproduced, pre-bought or acquired. They will also learn why some programmes get the great time slot and the heavy promotion, while other deserving programmes do not.

15:00-17:00
CASE STUDY & SCREENING OF A DISCOVERY CAMPUS MASTERSCHOOL FILM: THE MOSQUITO PROBLEM & OTHER STORIES
(Director: Andrey Paounov, an Agitprop / ITVS Intl., Filmtank Hamburg production, in association with ZDF/ARTE, Sundance Channel, Channel 4, Humanist Broadcasting Foundation/Human.nl, YLE Teema)

• Bert Janssens, HOS - Humanist Broadcasting Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

An affectionate portrait of the town of Belene on the river Danube in Bulgaria; a community beset with a plague of mosquitoes. Beautifully shot and scored, the director’s curiosity towards his fellow countryfolk shines through as he introduces us to Belene’s hopeful citizens about to embark on a bright new journey. Massive rusty cranes, foreign visitors, and the joyful chants of cheerleaders carry the dream of a great nuclear future. Disturbed only by gigantic stinging mosquitoes, the townsfolk celebrate the atomic hoorah by engraving the nuclear power plant logo on buildings and soup bowls. Amidst this apparent atomic prosperity, lies a past that no one wants to remember. An island holding terrifying secrets. Stories of shocking and horrible crimes loom on the city just like the dark clouds of mosquitoes descending on its citizens.

17:00
FAREWELL

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(*) not included in the Discovery Campus Yearbook 2007.